Given multiple holes, differing pars, etc., you'd probably be better served by approaching this with a couple of tables and using one of several different LOOKUP formulas. By tables, I mean something like this:
To paraphrase your first sentence, though, describing myself "I'm not at all experienced in golf, neither player nor spectator, so please forgive my ignorance." I do know Excel, I think, sufficiently to answer your Excel questions once you clarify such things as:
- what a golf score card looks like,
- what data you expect to enter into each cell for each player's results on each hole --
- do you enter the strokes played, or do you just enter the more abstract "Bogey" or "Birdie," or both
- etc. (i.e., anything else that might figure in to the data you'd collect and the output you'd expect when all is tabulated.
And, yes, I really am that ignorant about golf. (Tennis is my game.)
I also am part of a small group of friends who play several of the word games that have become so popular in recent months, and I have a spreadsheet where I tabulate the results. Each day's results, results YTD, and averages, medians, etc. The top level summary looks like this (and just like golf, the low score wins; OK, I'm not totally ignorant of golf's rules).
=VLOOKUP(C2-B2,$G$2:$I$7,3,FALSE)=VLOOKUP(C2-B2,$G$2:$I$7,2,FALSE)An alternative could be a reference table along with VLOOKUP formulas. The formulas are in cells D2 and E2 and filled down.
